Electronic work slate units are employed in full-time day-to-day operation in field uses such as inventory control and delivery tracking, and will be described with particular reference thereto. Present day on-site services and delivery services increasingly rely on automated inventory control, remote data acquisition, and on-going data communication with their base of operations. Many technologies have evolved which allow for use of automation in these areas. These technologies include widespread use of inventory indicia readily susceptible to automated inventory control. These include package coding such as bar coding, RF coding, and the like. Further, advances in remote communications such as is provided with present-day cellular communication, as well as remote point-to-point data communications such as via modem/telephone interconnect, enable virtually constant data interchange between a home unit and a remote site.
Such remote data collection has spawned a first generation of portable data devices, such as that provided by U.S. Pat. No. 4,279,021 entitled Portable Data Entry Apparatus Including Plural Selectable Functional Configurations, assigned to Telxon Corporation. While such first generation units served well, a greater portion of the work force is entering, or posed to enter use of such remote data units. The increase in usage will require greater adaptability and features available to the portable unit to accomplish disparate uses with minimized costs associated with such application-specific areas. Further, greater utilization requires greater resources to be expended educating a user base. Accordingly, a more user-friendly interface would also be advantageous. Finally, increased reliance on data devices means that operators will be using them over extended periods of time throughout a work day. Accordingly, increased ergonomics to lessen user fatigue and increase productivity would also be advantageous.
The present invention contemplates a new and improved remote-data acquisition and processor unit which overcomes the above referred problems, and others, and provides a unit which may be comfortably utilized for extended periods with lessened fatigue, which provides an interface which requires minimized operator training, as well as a unit which integrates only those functions required to a specific application to minimize component costs, while simultaneously preserving expansion ability. The invention also enables such units to be configured, reconfigured and upgraded by selection of removable modules in order to provide operational capabilities selected to meet the requirements of a wide range of applications.